The Question a Great Dad NEEDS to ask…

Q: What is one question that every dad should ask themselves specifically as they’re maybe arriving home, getting home from work, leaving that part of their day, and going to their families? What is the one question they should ask themselves?

A: I want to start by saying that I do ask myself this question every time that I come home, and I can’t take any credit for it. I want to give credit, so brothers if you are listening to this or reading this somebody else you should listen to is a guy named Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Ministry in Atlanta. An incredible man of faith, Charles Stanley’s son, so a preacher’s kid that wanted to be a preacher. He is very successful, And he is a great dad. He is an incredible dad. And he taught me this question for himself so I want to share it with you.

When I get home and am about to get out of my car, before I go in, I ask myself a question…

What would a good dad do?

What would a good dad do tonight?What would a good dad do in this situation?

Some of you might be like… why would you ask that? I am not interested in doing what I want to do, because what I want to do is the same thing my brothers that you want to do. If you work hard, and I believe that most of you do at your jobs, what you want to do is you want to come in, sit on the couch, you want to watch an hour and a half of news, you want to eat supper, then you want your kids to magically disappear to bed, you probably want to have sex with your wife, and then you want to go to bed. That is something kind of similar to what we want to do. You know that is not what’s waiting for you.

So I am not interested in what would Jason do? What would a good dad do?

So what a good dad would do is he would come home, if his wife is home, he would show his children that immediately she is a priority. Dads, never let your kids think that they are more of a priority than your spouse. You chose your spouse, you didn’t get to choose them. She is always going to be a priority. They need to learn that and know that. My kids know that they could never turn me against Jessica. She is the number two person in my life next to God. She is number two and they are right after her. That is healthy and that is good.

For them, what a good dad would do is he would engage in what their day was all about. He would ask them questions. He would show intentional interest in their day. What a good dad would do is he would set aside a specific time. For me it’s at least 30-45 minutes per kid. I have two and I am about to have four, so I am going to have to maybe change the parameters a little bit, but right now I am able to do about 30-45 minutes per kid engaging in an activity with them. My daughter loves art so we are drawing something almost every single day. My son is already addicted to video games like me and I have to apologize to my wife every day about that. We play a game together. There are a lot of great games that you can share screen and play together. That is the thing he wants to do. This morning before I came into work, “Can we play a game together dad?” That’s what he wanted. That is what he asked me. He loves doing that so I want to make sure I set some time to do that.

And then of course, after doing, typically we do eat, and then I go into chore mode with my wife. That’s what a good dad would do is help her, because a lot of times women are more focused on that. Our kids have to be clean, their teeth have to be brushed. Dad is like “Hey, put some gel in it dude. I don’t care.” You know? It’s not a big deal. Or you know, here is a breath mint. It’s not a big deal. Helping the priorities of your wife’s heart be the priorities to your heart is a big deal. Bathing, cleaning, loving on your kids, and getting them to bed is something every dad should do. An earlier question talked about praying over your kids. Put them to bed and pray over them.